


Shattered

by K3llyK4t



Series: Outfoxed - Outside the Lovesquare [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Lila's Just Crazy, Lila's Mom is a Decent Human, No Tragic Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21991546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K3llyK4t/pseuds/K3llyK4t
Summary: Carlotta Rossi loved her daughter and had raised her to the best of her ability as a single parent, where had she gone wrong?
Series: Outfoxed - Outside the Lovesquare [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585939
Comments: 19
Kudos: 283





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Moved this from the Outfoxed Series to it's own, since I'll be branching out at least one more side that doesn't center on the main plot. 
> 
> Chronologically this story touches pre-Exposed AND post-Freedom, happening side-by-side without being fully involved with the main plot of Outfoxed.

Carlotta Rossi was a good person, or at least the felt she was. Losing her husband young had been hard but she'd pushed on, choosing to live for the two of them, though it didn't stop her from feeling guilty when she wound up with another man's child even if she knew Gregorio wouldn't have wanted her to stay hung up on him. Theodore Tremaine was a kind man but not one she'd marry if he even proposed, his list of exes was longer than Carlotta's whole family tree and the Montalti family she was born from was huge.

With a child on the way and a new assignment from her boss, to work in France, she had hurried to be in the French city to find doctors and a home as soon as she could. It was easier than she thought, choosing Paris as her home since she could fly or take a train as needed to other cities, her humble home was comfortable and she settled in rather quickly.

Lila was born on a rainy Monday, around late evening, and Carlotta had made a promise to her daughter that she would be the happiest little girl in the world.

It didn't take long for Carlotta to need help, she was a single mother with an infant and a job that required a lot of travel, she spent a lot of money on premium daycare and made sure to buy only the best of the best for her Lila. Everyone had said she was a happy baby, that she'd grow to be beautiful and incredible, that Carlotta was a wonderful mother for how much she did.

Even if she was tired after a long day she spent time reading to Lila, she played with blocks and dolls and toys even for hours despite needing rest, she learned how to cook food in so many new ways when her daughter was going through her picky phases. Carlotta knew it was silly but she doted on her daughter, though she was sure to point out just when Lila needed to curb the attitude, her little girl was fair and kind and sweet with people adoring her polite behavior and charming ways.

Everyone had warned her that the teenage years would be a trial, that she'd begin to rebel and lash out, Carlotta hadn't believed it; not her little Lila, who was so well-behaved and sweet. At eleven her Lila was enrolled into a prestigious private academy, mixed gender because she herself had met Gregorio at her own early school and wouldn't rob that same chance of her daughter, but this also came with a very thorough discussion of consent and appropriate contact.

Carlotta made sure her daughter knew that she had the right to say no to any form of touching, even something as simple as a handshake, but that same thing extended to any other girl or boy she met. Famous or not, popular or not, she made sure Lila knew that if someone told her to back off that her daughter would do so. Carlotta also included a lesson on what body language to look for, that might indicate the touch wasn't wanted but that the recipient wasn't comfortable saying so, such as flinching or tensing.

At fourteen Lila asked to change schools to a public setting, when rumors spread that one of the male teachers was a lot more physical than he should have been, Carlotta obliged her request for two reasons. Safety being primary, her requested school was closer to home and with the akuma popping up that was much nicer an option, the rumors might have only been that but Carlotta didn't want her daughter attending any school like that. The second was that Lila had proven a dutiful student, acting as class president and taking on a lot of responsibilities, her grades were good and a change of setting wasn't the worst thing Lila could ask for.

Carlotta hadn't even known there was a problem, her daughter had cited the principal being akumatized had the school shut down right after that Fox akuma had appeared but Carlotta wasn't alarmed since their home seemed like a center-point, she had papers from the school backing her daughter’s claims that the building was on lockdown and her co-workers were always talking about some new villain popping up.

The hardest part was grounding Lila, since her teacher was e-mailing her assignments for the time of the lock down, her daughter had been lazing about and Carlotta wasn’t going to permit it. Once the week was up her daughter decided it best to stay in and focus on her grades, something the elder could support, even if her friends were constantly trying to talk with her.

Carlotta thought her daughter was silly to ignore her friend’s messages but she supposed her daughter knew what was best for her studies, Lila had talked about all her friends and Carlotta had even met a few of them, if she thought they’d distract her then Carlotta was okay with her staying in. Carlotta enjoyed Kim’s cheery demeanor, even if he was a little bit confused about what her job was, Carlotta imagined it was easy to think she might get to mingle with foreign royalty and brushed it aside as a young man's imagination.

Lila had refused to let him come over, citing he had a crush on her and she didn’t want to lead him on more than she had on accident, Carlotta had a feeling her little girl had a crush of her own and was just more embarrassed by the state of her room.

But of the kids she'd met, Rose and Mylene being her favorites for their kind and very obviously caring natures, Carlotta was wary of Alya when the young girl explained she ran the Ladyblog. Having seen it once and heard it mentioned, a young girl willingly running into danger to get the details on the superheroes of Paris would always make a parent cringe, she had begged Lila not to get mixed up into running toward danger.

Bullies were a thing she hadn’t expected to be a problem, until Lila came home crying about how horrible Marinette Dupain-Cheng was as that she’d burned Lila’s homework assignment, but the school had expelled the other girl and Carlotta suspected the threat had passed. Though she had told Lila to watch out for Alya, after the girl attacked a business on her blog, unaware of why her coworkers were giving her looks of sympathy from their desks.

But the day came that Carlotta's happy and stable footing proved to be made of glass, easy to shatter and already cracked, when a woman entered her office at work with her superior. "Good afternoon, Madam Rossi, I am Marlowe Denali and I am here to inform you of the lawsuit being filed against your daughter on behalf of Gabriel Agreste and the Dupain-Cheng family." The lawyer was cold, ruthless even, and each claim had Carlotta wondering just what was the truth.

Marinette had been bullying Lila, from what she understood, constantly excluding her from class events and quick to refuse any accommodations made if Lila were the one asking. It had gotten to the point that Carlotta nearly stormed the school to find out why they weren't acting, finding out that the Mayor's daughter was in attendance and that she was friends with Marinette had served to anger the Mother, but without proper evidence of power abuse she couldn't act.

Finding out about the unlawful photography and sexual harassment charges, though, had reduced Carlotta to wondering how far Marinette's reach was. Adrien was Chloe's friend, Lila had told her, but he'd expressed his interest and she'd given him a chance; no doubt the two rich families were covering for Marinette's behavior, now that this was being thrown at her. "I will gladly hire a lawyer and dispute the charges. Thank you for your time-" But her supervisor shook her head and gestured to another.

Two police officers entered the room. "You will need a lawyer for yourself and your daughter, Madam, you're both under arrest." Carlotta fell silent, knowing better than to fight, but as she was led to the police cruiser she wondered just what was happening. Nobody would tell her a thing aside from negligence, truancy, and fraudulent signatures on legal documentation.

* * *

Carlotta had seen the footage from the news over the weeks of time she’d been waiting for her trial to start, the Ladyblog and TVi going toe-to-toe and the Ladyblog losing, the heroes recounting her daughter as a liar. The mother had seen everything and grieved at just how badly she’d messed up, how she’d failed all those children, no matter how the school had helped with that mess it was still Carlotta who could have done more.

How had she missed Lila’s obsessive treatment of Adrien? How had she missed the stacks of fashion magazines, the cut-outs hidden between book pages or the journal entries citing herself as Mrs. Lila Agreste?

What made Carlotta blind to the threatening letters her daughter had written and stashed in her desk, angry letters of hateful words addressed to Marinette specifically.

How had she missed a lack of communication from the school? How hadn’t she realized her daughter was blackmailing another student?

Everything else about the trial was just fast, all the evidence piled against Lila with witnesses in the form of students and staff as well as camera footage had led to Lila's expulsion from French soil, Carlotta's soon followed with heavy truancy and neglect charges. Finding out Lila had forged all the emergency contact papers, forged field trip permission slips, forged medical paperwork, and had been making sure Carlotta had never gotten word from the school was like a wake-up call.

Nobody knew where she'd gone wrong as a parent, truthfully, all the teachers at her former private school even spoke up that she'd never displayed such tendencies under their care; Lila would be undergoing a thorough examination for any signs of mental illness that she might've gone undiagnosed of. Carlotta had given her own apologies, to every parent of the kids in that class, but there was still backlash from the community in regards to the school.

Carlotta had agreed, after she was sure that it was okay, to allow Lila's situation to be used in the school board's personal investigations to make sure something like this didn't happen again. It was jarring to be forced to leave France, heading back to Italy just to wind up in a prison cell, but Carlotta could only stare and wonder where she'd gone wrong. On talking with other prisoners, other women who were there, she began trying to understand mental illness and what could and couldn't be diagnosed.

Carlotta might've been unable to help her daughter but that didn't mean she couldn't try to help other people understand. It would take years for her to think she had enough but she wanted others to know, both parent and child, how important communication was to help each other.

In a few years’ time that book would be published, titled 'My Shattered Glass Floor' and published by a small agency, under the name C. Rossi.

In a few years’ time that book would be read and endorsed by both Ladybug and Chat Noir.

In a few years’ time that book would end up in every school, in every doctor's office, in every single library and on every single reading recommendation list.

In a few years’ time her book's profits would fund research for mentally ill youth to help them, to offer counseling and therapy free to poor families, and that it would become something that helped many parents feel less as failures.

Carlotta Rossi didn't know it but one day she would be seen as a hero.

**Author's Note:**

> As always find me on Tumblr (@chaoticGeminate), wanted to do a small segment of the Outfoxed Series relating to Lila's mom. I refused to give her a tragic backstory here, because she doesn't deserve it, she wasn't getting away with mommy or daddy issues leading to her becoming a villain.


End file.
